Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
Quite a few indie tabletop gaming ship’s company get their start by publishing political campaign setting sourcebooks , and donjon modules designed forDungeons & Dragonsfifth edition ( to be more accurate , designed for the detached , open - sourceD&D5e System Reference Document ) . Some indie tabletop secret plan decorator take a dissimilar approach by publishing system - agnostic sourcebooks - troves of public - edifice , lore , non - player characters , maps , and quests designed to be broadly speaking compatible with any tabletop RPG set in the donjon - crawling heroical fantasy musical style so iconic toD&D. The following sourcebooks are particularly deserving check out thanks to their very originative earthly concern setting and detailed presentation of people , creatures , and adventures .
Third - party published content forDungeons & Dragonsfirst became de jure potential with the dismissal of the first System Reference Document for theDungeons & Dragons3.5 edition rulesback in 2003 . Developers at Wizards of the Coast unloose this basic parcel of plot rules to makeD&D3.5e more accessible to novice tabletop gamers while also encouraging smaller - graduated table publishing company to create content compatible withD&Drulebooks and campaign options . In the decade to come in , SRDs for 3e , 4e , and 5eD&Dinspired library of campaign modules , custom course , and dungeon - crawling scenarios made by indie developer ; a few ground - breaking original tabletop RPGs likePathfinderor the super - heroicMutants & Mastermindswere even built around the D20 ruleset core toD&D.
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The sourcebooks list below are n’t built around the SRD offifth editionDungeons & Dragonsadventures , or indeed any particular tabletop roleplaying game organisation . At the same time , these sourcebooks are soaked in the ambiance of classic heroic phantasy RPGs , paint vivid pictures of wild , wild worlds fill up with immense stretches of wilderness , awe - inspiring supernatural animate being , and the ruins of civilizations with a rankness of culture and account . These sourcebooks can easily be used with the rule forDungeons & Dragonsfifth edition , Pathfindersecond variant , the tiro - favorable fancy RPGQuest , or any other roleplaying biz about go out and having an adventure .
Skyrealms: D&D-Style Fantasy RPG Sourcebook AND Coloring Book
Skyrealms , currently in the cognitive operation of being fund on Kickstarter , is a self - described " scheme - inert fantasy sourcebook " with 48 pages of creature , mini - donjon , trance , items , and charming location organize by game fashion designer Iko forD&D - style fantasy run . It also befall to be a colorize book for grownup with elaborately detailed line of credit images of Emobeasts , Furlings , Crystal Slugs , Lostronauts , and other surreal creature drawn by illustrator Evlyn Moreau . The setting ofSkyrealms , truthful to title and theme , is a vista of floating islands , eccentric characters , and foreign secrets of " Color Magic " that characters can master during their dangerous undertaking , adding narrative weight to the colored pencil and/or crayons player doodle with while crystallise the sourcebook ’s imagery .
The Dark Of Hot Springs Island Has Old-School D&D Flair
The Dark Of Hot Springs Islandis a hexcrawl compendium made bySwordfish Islands , a publishing house of campaign modules , RPG zines , and sourcebooks likeBeyond The Borderlands , inspired by classic earlyDungeons & DragonsmoduleKeep On The Borderlands . Premise - Stephen Samuel Wise , The Dark Of Hot Springs Islandis centered around a detailed function of an island chain dissever into hexangular spaces used to assist theGame Master craft an RPG story . As the players ' characters travel around this island , the Game Master is capable to look up the sourcebook to see what sort of creatures , ruins , arcanum , or treasures take each of the mathematical function ’s jinx . The setting ofThe Dark Of Hot Springs Islandis particularly imaginative and vivid , providing Game Masters with resource such as slow descriptions and illustrations of strange creatures , Elvish ruining , cursed point , and vegetation along with biographic notes on the squabbling factions and major NPCs who seek to curb the precious resource of Hot Springs Island .
Carved In Stone Is A Sourcebook About Scotland’s Ancient Picts
Carved In Stone , though an RPG sourcebook , is n’t about a more traditionalD&D - elan phantasy world like the Forgotten Realms . Rather , it ’s a resourcefulness intend to take modern players back in prison term to the landscape painting of seventh one C Scotland , dwell by cultures of Pictish the great unwashed striving to notice their own identity in the wake of the Roman Empire ’s departure from Great Britain and the migration of encroaching peoples like the Anglo - Saxons . In many mode , Carved In Stone , as a Kickstarter - fund RPG setting pathfinder , is meant to refute the stereotype of blue - paint , kilt - wear upon Scottish strapper popularized by motion-picture show such asBraveheart , rather using clear description and colorful representative to delve into the mundaneness and spectacle of genuine former Antiquity Scotland .
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The completeCarved In Stonebook will polish a light on the write up , art , diets , article of clothing , Town , livestock , waste secret plan , and feeling of the plebeian Pict - in other words , it’sRPG content about communitiesas well as great baron , queens , and hero . The titleCarved In Stoneitself advert to the fend Isidor Feinstein Stone used to mark boundaries and travel route in ancient Scotland - pillars frequently carved with icons , illustrations , and inscription of Ogham script .
A Thousand Thousand Islands, A Southeast Asian Fantasy Setting
The system - agnostic RPG zine parcel calledA Thousand Thousand Islandsis compatible withDungeons & Dragons , Pathfinder , and nearly every other larger-than-life illusion tabletop RPG scheme , but has a setting that lets it abide aside in many ways from the Western Fantasy worlds generalize byD&D. Each individual zine in theAThousandThousand Islandsbundle was spell by aSoutheast Asian tabletop game creatorand key out a different facet of a fantasy island archipelago inspire by the finish , histories , and myth of Southeast Island nations such as Malaysia , Indonesia , and the Philippines . The meat of thisA Thousand Thousand Islandszine is eight typeset leaflet each describing a different fancied location – a " river kingdom of ruins and crocodiles " called MR - KR - GR , a " maritime nation of teak knights and living ship " called Korvu , and so on . Supplementary appendix in this zine give Game Masters special resource they can reap on to flesh out this southeastern Asian phantasy scene – bestiaries of fauna and flora , collections of prowess , and even collections of essays and tales about the Hantu , monster frequently mention in real - life Malaysian folklore .
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Sources : Skyrealms / Kickstarter , Swordfish Islands , Carved In Stone / Kickstarter , A Thousand Thousand Islands
